Author
Topic: Yup. Another SPORPG. (Read 15369 times)

Alright, so as you all probably have guessed, this is another SpoRPG thread, though, gratefully, I am a pretty resourceful person, and dedicated to writing. Additionally, for those who will undoubtedly whine about creating (yet) another thread on this game, I'd like to remind you that even if I recycled another creature (Say, the Inceptus?) then I'd -still- have to create another thread to control the poll.

Regardless, here's the basic layout of the whole thing. I'm going to put down a rather length wall of text that you all have to read and then summarily beat me over the head with, and then, after receiving at least 5 votes (Without there being a tie, of course,) and after 4-6 hours, I typically will update, provided that it's not -too- late into the night, so expect updates to be both fast -and- furious, and my thirst for general sci-fi will definately keep things fresh and light.

SO IT BEGINS!

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Our story begins in a rather unconventional solar system. It was a single red dwarf star, and what would ordinarily be a belt of asteroids, except, due to the system being small and easily affected by the whims of the rest of its insignificant galaxy, the asteroids had fused into something resembling a single, massive disc, with its own inner, pocketed ferous, super-heated core, which is often quite turbulent, the mantle and magma often spewing onto the surface, solidifying the ring into a more solid object over the billions of years of geological evolution. It had its own atmosphere, an incredibly thick, wet, and heavy atmosphere that consisted of water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen, most of it left behind from colliding comets and other phenomena over the eons that passed. The ring, being a whole Earth Continent across, and of course, somehow maintaining its precarious movement around the sun.

This would have been all well and dandy had the massive (in terms of astronomy,) disc not been repeatedly struck by other asteroids, splitting it into oddly shaped planetoids that would orbit the dwarf, each one containing the neccesary ingredients for carbon-based life, but alas, our story deals with the largest of the clumps that eventually fell into a stable orbit around its sun that eventually settled at roughly 116 million kilometers away from the sun, sustaining an atmospheric temperature of roughly 90 degrees during most of the year, and once the solar system had eventually fallen into some semblance of order...a spark of life came on that barren rock in the form of sustaining amino acids...Eventually, small photosynthetic bacteriums lived in pools of water on the rocky surface, and in the small lakes and seas (no oceans here,) on the planet. Other micro-organisms, heterotrophs and simple phage-viruses also took shape.

Fate, as it would seem, should be laid on the cilia of our heroic paramecium, the first eukaryotic micro-organism around that was, of course, immediately sucking at life. Unfortunately, more "primitive" prokaryotes were out-competing our larger, cumbersome eukaryote by means of flagellan propulsion, instead of cilia propulsion, and were managing to gobble up autotrophic bacteriums before our large protozoa even had a chance. So, of course, we come at an evolutionary cross-roads:

A - Diversify diet by developing methods to eat autotrophic bacteria with membranes that the protozoans can't pierce.B - Ditch the cilia and get -multiple- flagella. Outrace the competition.C - Evolve super-vacuoles to suck in the competing protozoans, and bring them to us, rather than chase -them- down.D - Develop a slower metabolism to require less food, and thus, require less competition with the protozoans, and use what food is left behind.

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Alright, so that should be an interesting installment, for now. I put this up late so that it could stew on the forums all day while I'm away at school, and immediately after school, so I can put in a second update (hopefully) before the night is through, tomorrow. Much love, guys.

At this point you cant tell how a decision will affect the long term stuff of your creature so i chose C... for the hell of it.

Exactly. Just look at the species that most likely was the first of the Chordata...Pikaia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikaia ) is supposedly our evolutionary ancestor, and how much of it, in general terms, of course, do you think lasted out to this day?

Dang. -9- votes? Didn't think I'd get that much of a response the first time around. Anyways, here's the first update for Tuesday, hopefully I can bang another one out (Though who knows? Maybe I can get a third in if the votes move fast enough.)

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With the advent of developing a form of phagocytosis, our eukaryotic cell begins a major competitor, and the dominant microbe, easily devouring other competing prokaryotic microbes, and allowing our creature to eat just about everything short of massive blue-green algae that have become quite large in population as of late. Of course, a rapid increase in population of our own protozoans forces them to cannibalize for a lack of easily accessible food, as prokaryotes who haven't moved to other areas have simply been eaten up. Rather than simply splitting apart, our cells mutate and develop a form of sexual reproduction, though the arise of that trait is only in a small population, and as that population splits, it easily develops into a number of seperate species, genetically, anyways.

The ecosystem, as it stands, becoming a variety of bacteriums and mostly eukaryotic cells descendent of our original species, an uncountable number of million years ago, is now actually uniquely tuned and balanced to the warm climate of our planet. The most successful of the current generation are those who actually maintain the status quo between competitive eukaryotes, autotrophic and heterotrophic alike. Of course, a serious mutation is about to occur, and destabilize the ecosystem once more...What will lead to the new upheaval?

A - Our cells develop symbiosis with more specialized protozoans as to fuse and mutate into organisms with differentiated cells.B - Develop more complex and efficient organelles (Ala Mitochondria, lysosomes, etc.)C - Develop a more effective auto-immune system against predatory viruses.D - Widen eating pallette for secondary debris (Bacterial and Protozoan waste, viruses, etc,) a form of scavenging.

This will -probably- be the last update for the night, but if the voting moves quickly enough, I'll probably put up another. Frankly, I'd like to move out of the cellular level as quickly as humanly possible, because...well...it's probably boring as hell for all of you.

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Our microbes eventually give up their throne as the heads of the land of the very small, but, in reality, they flourish as bottom-feeders, and find more nutrition and more plentiful food in the "crumbs" from meals, the wastes from algaes, as well as those dinky little prokaryotes that the dominant species now could probably laugh at, as most of the other species have seriously outpaced them in terms of size. Eons pass and our species gets a little bypassed in terms of evolutionary progress as we become...the janitor, and are quite good at it. Other species begin developing multiple cells, for more efficient energy management, yet ours is left behind in the dust...not because it's bad at its job, but because it's so -good- at it. Evolution does happen, in the form of becoming a much larger organism, and it forms into a more or less cylindrical shape to be able to hold such volume and still manage its internal resources effectively. Eventually, the membrane around our creature begins to harden, protecting itself from the casual predator, and the viruses that it fed upon, becoming a cumbersome, armored protozoan, ready to take down other microbes...

However, that would be all well and dandy until another, much smaller eukaryotic protozoan developed a form of digestive fluid that it squirted onto prey to dissolve their membranes and kill opposing cells, before slowly eating the dead carcass. Predation, however, was more a boon than a problem, as it spurred evolution in the direction towards advancement, not stagnation, and since such predators are rare, they tend to only knock off the very weak and the malformed cells.

Evolution!

A - Develop organelles capable of generating bases to combat the acids used by the predator.

B - Develop multiple cells to reshape and be more efficient, avoiding the long, tube-like, non-amorphous form that our species currently has.

C - Develop a primitive form of Olfactory sense, to sniff out better and larger quantities of food.

D - Develop the ability to fuse with other of the same species, to better share resources collectively.

Fourth Update! Someone finally broke that freaking tie. Okay, moving on. We should be moving out of cellular mode sooner rather than later, because, unfortunately, there isn't much to describe outside of the primordial goo.

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Our organism begins to take shape as it slowly develops into a multicellular organism, moving away from the elongated zeppelin shape to now a rocky, crusty orb, with large holes in its body, which it uses to suck in prey and nutrients, and then spit out as a form of movement. Granted, it also has a bunch of cilia, but it's slowly becoming vestigial, as it clearly begins to lack function. The size of our new organism is roughly around the size of a grain of sand, now -quite- large for the microbial world, but it rarely actually needs to be near the size of its food as it all sucked it in like a whale sucks in crill.

Our new critter, unfortunately, is falling prey to the acid-spewing eukaryotes that use the acid to break through the rough crust of

our creature, and then eat them from the inside out, but our heroes could never tell because they lack any real form of sensory perception. Even the best food, the algae, is hard to find without perception, but there are a number of other things to be concerned about.

Namely, the water that everyone's been swimming in has jumped a number of degrees in terms of regular temperature, causing a higher metabolism and need for food...but overall greater activity, and increasing the evolutionary pace of other organisms, though unfortunately, ours is having a rough time finding its food.

A - Develop a patch to sense light. The brighter the light, the more likely that algae will be there to feed on.

B - Develop a touch-sensitive nervous system. Our organisms can actually fight back against predators once they can "feel" them out.

C - Develop toxins that disperse once the crust has been breached, thus killing off potential predators.

D - Develop a better control method for homeostasis, thus getting the best performance, despite varying hot and cold temperatures.

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I accidentally clicked pressed Tab thinking that it would actually indent the paragraph, and I posted what I had...If that happens, don't worry, it just means I'm working on the post, and haven't finished it yet.

First update for Wednesday. Turns out there'll only be two updates, most likely, for today...I kind of had an AP History paper to write. Anyways, moving on!

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Our organism develops a patch of light sensitive mini-cells, capable of determining the brightness of light. As our creature tends to increase in size as it manages to secure a much larger quantity of food in the forms of algae and the waste from the collective ecosystem. Eventually, it became more complex, with a trio of patches that were capable of some form of depth perception so as to more or less "see" the shadows and silhouettes of food near the surface of the water.

This didn't stop predation, of course. While our kind could barely see our predators, and almost evade them from time to time, the increase of population and size made them easier targets, especially when they couldn't even feel when they were being "chewed" on, so to speak, though their predators became more life-threatening parasites more than anything else, as the size of our orb-like creatures began to lack...aerodynamics, so to speak, as a sphere seemed to drag a bit when the water jets pushed them around. Also, the energy it took to move was also significantly greater in need, for the spheres to move, and after a big feed, and a lot of movement, most would need to rest to properly

A - Develop a Nervous System.

B - Develop modified fins/legs, for better mobility.

C - Develop a form of cardiovascular system, for more efficient resource management, and for inwardly fighting against internal parasites.

They are still the size of a grain of sand, right? Because that is awfully small for any sort of 'system'... I do hope they get bigger in the next update. Anyways, I agree with smjjames: a nervous system!

Smjjames hit the nail on the head. Even if the entity is just barely larger than a grain of sand, there are still -tons- of cells in there, and even large organisms, like a lot of Cnidarians, lack brains completely...just nervous systems, or nerve clumps.

Aaanyways, next update is tomorrow afternoon...Sorry for only one update, but I was fairly busy. I hope to bang out two or three tomorrow, hopefully three.

EDIT:

Okay, so here's the oopdate. Wee!

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Our critter grew drastically in size, developing a more complex nervous system that finally brought branching tissues together, which included its sight. In fact, the gentle, grazing nature and sheer amount of plenty made it easy to double in size, though movement came even more ponderous, which led it to just simply float slowly, eating waste, algae, and the smaller, unicellular organisms that seemed incapable of escaping its vacuum. Granted, other species began developing as well, though even when roughly around the same size as our creature, they couldn't puncture its hardened exterior to do any damage or eat it, and most were simply carnivores, and competing with others for different food sources.

Rudimentary muscles came with the increase in size, forming ringlets around the holes for eating and transportation, allowing our creature to adjust its speed and intake, as well as creating primitive digestive tissues, rather than just simple vacuoles in neighboring cells. Gradually, they became complexer as a species, and as size grew, one would find that the water seemed to be...increasingly shallow, even more so than just what seemed to be normal for a size increase...Eventual advances in sight, with better depth perception and even some bits of color would allow them to spy outside of their fluid environment, outside of the pools that they lived to look out at a fairly barren world...Water was simply a series of puddles...similar to tide pools that sat and flowed in little dents on the rocky surface, undoubtedly from being battered with asteroids...

Some forms of algae had advanced far enough to start escape the water and conventional predation by getting onto the surface, evolving into mosses and similar things that could exist on the temperate, moist surface.

A - Develop nubby limbs for locomotion outside of jets.

B - Develop amphibious lungs.

C - Develop a more advanced brain and thinking process.

D - Develop a better form of sexual reproduction other than laying one egg at a time.

I agree with smjjames, at our presemt size and evolution stage, most of these wouldn't work very well. The only one that really would is the nubby limbs and the sexual reproduction thing... which is what I voted for.

Weeeellp. I waited for more votes after six, but I guess that was a bit of a waste of time. Aaaanyways, the results have arrived, and unanimously, it was D

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A new egg laying and hatching method was developed. Rather than simply exchanging fluids instinctively, a designated male and female gender is created...The difference? Very little, in reality, due to limited space, resources, and obviously, genetic material. Males come floating along and spurt genetic material at females, who then receive the DNA packets and promptly lay a clutch of roughly thirty or so eggs, however, the whole process is...fairly primitive, especially since there are no distinguishing characteristics between male and female, male members just wind up spurting out genetic material at -any- member of the species, and with very little to no maternal instincts, females typically just float off after laying eggs unhidden and unprotected. While this would seem problematic, in reality, it produced much more young than before, even despite the fact that most of the eggs were eaten by predators, or they succumbed to harsh conditions.

Eventually, a plateau would be reached. A little more than twice the size of a grain of sand, no expansion could be possible with the present amount of food and reproduction, and our creatures hit a bit of a snag in that there was very little reason to advance, until of course, a new form of predator came from out of nowhere. Presumably from another area, they were long, flexible creatures with circular mouths that were more than capable of sawing right through such hard, protective skins, and quickly devouring the insides and planting eggs in the empty shells of their victims.

This new predator, the Plakth, as it would later be named by intelligent species, simply devastated the population, and with a large population to feed on, it practically ate -exlusively- on our organisms. They were swift, vicious, and too large to simply be sucked up, and posed a serious danger. How exactly to deal with them?

A - Develop a taste for Plakth eggs.

B - Develop natural camouflage and hide.

C - Stop floating on the surface develop small limbs to rove the murky bottom, where Plakth can't see, and all eventual debris lands for feeding anyway.

D - Develop simple, toxic goop that could be squirted out of jets and into Plakth eyes and mouths.

Alright, B was the obvious, favorite choice. Hopefully, the votes move fast enough for two or more updates, today.

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Eventually, our creatures simply...move away from the threat, even though they move away from the primary food source of algae, however, down on the bottom, in the murky silt that had begun to build up over the millions of years, where waste and the carcasses of other creatures fell to be devoured, as well as "lesser" organisms that fed on the same things. Eyes grew fairly useless in the muck, and weakened a bit, but for the quality of eyesight that was lost, much was gained in the form of gaining two forward, weak, jointed arms with a pair of tiny little claws on each that were used to gently probe through the muck and grab bits of food that it could find.

The jets that used to be primary movement grew to be obsolete, and only one remained in front to function as a rudimentary mouth, while the rear ones were kept to function as a self-defense mechanism to stir up silt and debris to blind any Plakth that came bravely down to the dark, murky bottom. Population was kept at a fairly stable level, and grew slightly isolated from the rest of the biome.

One group fragments from the mainstream population by venturing far too close to a large aquifer, moving to a wide, if dramatically shallower pool. Thick green foliage is planted along the edges and even in the murky silt that was much more pronounced here than any other place, and was unsuitable to Plakth, as they couldn't see in the muck, and unsuitable for algae as just the bare top was uncovered with stirred silt from the rough current that was draining to other pools that held more of the thick flora. Here, our creatures flourish by devouring rotten plant material, and smaller organisms, growing much dramatically larger in size, now nearly four millimeters in general size, and nearly symbiotic with the plants, as the removal of old plant mass granted more space for new plants to grow.

Other organisms, albeit smaller ones, live on the dry surface, notably, a species of social arachnids that create a series of webs to form colonies among the small leaves of the primitive foliage, though they posed no threat since they were incapable of swimming or breathing in water. Other larger and smaller species of other indepentent arthropods lived on the rocky surface, where the soil was thin and fairly sandy.

A - Develop a form of amphibious lungs, and take advantage of decaying matter and small(er) animals on the shoreline.

B - Further develop the mouth, so as to begin to eat harder substances, and munch on some of the plants that grow here.

C - Begin using large towheads of plants as instinctive, communal nesting grounds.

D - Find some way to get at some of the other organisms that live in the plant "canopy."

A- the other options just drag the creature away from the scummy scavenger niche.

You're totally fixated on that, aren't you?

Yes, itll be a nice counterpoint to all the 'we are the superior beings' type aliens (like the cryoeltans ). A race of scummy, ugly aliens who are well aware of their standing in the order of things but have managed to somehow trancend their lowly status and become a spacefaring civilisation (eventually)

Ugh. Update would have been up at around 10 if I had gotten that damn sixth vote early enough. Aaanyways, here it is.

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Primitive amphibious lungs are developed, which are...surprisingly inefficient. Regardless, it gives our creature enough breath to slowly drag itself onto shore and eat carcasses that tend to drift to shore with the water. Other creatures are far too smart and...not stupid to get close enough to be gobbled up, though fellow arthopods had long since developed carapaces too hard to be incapacitated, especially since, well, our creature was fairly in the lower-mid sized range, as the other land-based organisms seemed to have been around for a much longer span of time, as evidenced by how adapted they seemed to be with the marsh biome.

Eyes regained their former strength and stronger out of neccesity to find food on the shoreline easier, and as well as to avoid predators. The previously mentioned, social arachnids began predating on our creatures by waiting until they got onto shore, and then ensaring them in webs and taking them off to be devoured. They didn't become a primary source of food for the arachnids, but more of a convenient snack when the opportunity arose. The overall size of our creatures continued to swell, for a number of reasons, namely, it made swooping the unsuspecting creatures into the canopy a relatively difficult thing to do, as well a result of an expanded food palette.

A - Develop some better locomotion so that when on land, our creature isn't just dragging themselves limply across the shore.

B - Get a pair of mandibles to bite back at the little buggers that are taking advantage of us.

Yeah, I didn't think that anything but more legs would come out of this. Aaanyways, moving on.

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The rear of our creature further develops, forming a kind of segmented tail that inched and writhed with nubby little feet while the front remained to have a pair of jointed legs. In the water, movement improved even more dramatically, with one massive rudder-like tail now forming along a bit more of a streamlined body. Camouflage was excellent as what had once been a protective membrane is now a hard carapace, though these creatures, growing to be about half the size of one's pinky finger, never had a molting process. Rather, the carapace simply split and rehardened over the body to form a textured, rough shell resembling something close to tree bark or coarse sand.

With a more streamlined body and a bit more force in the rear, our creatures are capable of burrowing into the sand, often digging gently, just beneath the surface, to keep any opposing arachnids from stealing them away, though that proved to take more than just one or two, now. With burrowing also came sustenance in the form of gently sucking on the bottom of roots. A little scraping with the frontal claw, and our critters could easily suck and get some form of sap, though the under-developed mouth prohibited too much suction, and thus, prevented it from becoming a major food source, for now.

A - Get out of the freaking water and adapt further. No reason to stick around too long.

B - Better mouthparts for a wider omnivorous, as well as detritivous diet.

Sorry for the delay, folks, but I wasn't about to update until I got six votes (my new bare minimum,) as well as hitting a bit of a speed bump in the form of a 15 page AP history paper. Anyways, I'm back.

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Muscles and teeth develop around the mouth of our creature, which, now that they're a developed creature with form rather than some orb with jets, they would probably need a name. More on that later.

More importantly, our critters begin eating a much larger amount of plants, usually by gently teething into plants and sucking away at the phloem, though with the great amount of effort it takes to expose enough juicy sucrose to make it worthwhile, a kind of communal habit develops, where a small swarm of creatures would crowd around and take turns gnawing a wide ring, so that everyone could feed once its done. Of course, once they've all had their sugar fix, it's back to hard competition.

The mouth was capable of crunching through thin carapaces, though most of the other creatures "we" could eat were far too fast to be caught, unless already wounded or ill...which were easily dispatched, as well as eating carcasses, when they came along. Unfortunately, eating carcasses often came with diseases, though diseases were rare. More common were funguses that would travel from rotting detritus on the carapace of our creature, and then infect the nest eggs and feed from there, killing off creatures before they could be born.

A - Develop parental instincts to clean and care for eggs, to prevent fungus infections.

B - Further develop locomotion to split the "tail" into two psuedo legs.

Sorry about that. I updated fairly late last night and I had remembered that I didn't reset the poll...on the way to school, oddly enough. And guess what happens when I walk in the door after school? Power outage. Bah.

Aaanyways, some form of instinctive nesting habit takes place as our creatures, strictly between the mother and the father to take care of the young, naturally cleaning them to keep fungus spores off of them and to keep them from harms way in defined nests in the water, where young can develop freely in the water. Naturally, parents abandon the young after hatching, but diligence is the rule until that time.

Normal scavengers and creatures that used to eat young eggs now have to find a new food source, as protective parents with strong jaws are awaiting anything that tend to want to take the young eggs away. Natural population increases, though it really only stirs up even more bitter competition, to the point where infighting hinders the potential population size, but then again, only the truly strong individuals survive, which is good and bad, perhaps.

Another series of growth spurts in general size occur simply because it's beneficial for the species. Increase of size meant that chomping down on more creatures is easier, especially in the communal chomping on plants, which allows more sap to be harvested and less energy to be wasted overall. Total size is now roughly around the size of one's fingernail on the pinky finger, making it the largest of the -known- creatures of its biome, which consists only of fellow arthropods.

A - Develop more intrinsic social connections outside of communal eating and nesting habits.

B - Get rid of the fins and stay on land.

C - Continue parenting -past- the hatching phase of life.

D - Promote competition for mates as well as eating the eggs of "inferior" members of the species to promote further evolutionary growth and genetic strength.

Yeah, I somehow figured that if I put in what would happen if competition got fiercer, everyone would vote for that. Teehee.

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Physical competition increased, with a new instinctive ritual being developed. Before the communal sap eating, there would be, of course, a kind of communal fight for each gender near the base of the prospective plant. With the total critter count being anywhere between 8 to up to around a hundred. Competition would lead to a strict order on who would get fed when during the sap sucking, and who got what mate.

The emphasis on competitive physical strength and sheer size led to a massive evolutionary leap in size. Going from roughly the size of one's pinky fingernail to the size of one's fist, they had bloated up in a few million years, pushing the limits of their outer carapace in terms of structural support, as exceptionally large specimens would often have trouble moving and have very little space for internal organs to develop, with the rest of the body being taken up for the carapace itself.

Predation came at a stand-still as...well...they just couldn't keep up with normal prey, anymore, and their forward claws were now capable of snipping off stems and leaves to chomp on every now and again anyway, though the anterior fins truly kept the creature out of the sparse canopy..Not like there was much up there, for now. Rapid expansion of geographic territory came with a larger, hardier body, rather than just going up into the sky....Who could know what faced the creatures outside of their normal, marsh biome?

A - Further develop frontal claws for increased strength in order to defend against predators and attack lesser creatures.

B - Start moving in herds, using the previous social knowledge of the pecking order to establish a firm chain of command.

Well, burrowing becomes the norm for nesting and...day-to-day living, as well. No instinct created it, but creatures began living in semi-colonies, where protection was available, with easy gathering for mating, and easy gathering for eating...In reality, living closer just made living -easier-....With the exception of finding food, but more food was found in burrowing, so it roughly evened out.

Of course, there was trouble on the horizon, as moving out of the brackish marsh and into the freshwater swamps brought...well...large, amphibian predators. Hella big ones. With big mouths. Yup. They chewed through out creatures with reckless abandon, but only in swamps and lakes and such, as they didn't particularly care for brackish or salty water, too much. This, of course, seemed to pose more of a threat for the larger creatures that couldn't really lumber off to get away from the faster, larger amphibians, but the smaller ones could sometimes manage to wriggle off to their burrow. Something needed to be done.

A - Develop some form of inner toxin that made eating it deadly.

B - Get the hell out of the water and take off into the land. These amphibious predators needed still bodies of water to spawn.